Leafs keep winning, and that's no joke

Toronto Maple Leafs defeat Anaheim Ducks

Perhaps the best joke came from Carl Gunnarsson, who when describing a puck that hit his finger in a game on Friday kept with team policy and said, “right now it’s a mid-body [injury]. But picking my nose, it’s an upper-body [injury].”

Now that was funny.

That other stuff — the mock chants of “sixty-seven” or calling them the Maple Laughs — are not. Or rather, they seem ill-timed at this point in the season. Laugh all you want about the veil of secrecy regarding player injuries or the team’s past failures, but the Toronto Maple Leafs no longer seem like the Charlie Browns of the NHL.

Sure, this is a team that has gone six years (seven if you include the lost 2004-05 season) without qualifying for the playoffs and last won a Stanley Cup when Lester B. Pearson was the prime minister. But as general manager Brian Burke likes to say, all that is in the past. The Leafs, who defeated the Anaheim Ducks 5-2 late on Sunday night, are now the second-best team in Eastern Conference, with the league’s top-two scorers in Phil Kessel (31 points) and Joffrey Lupul (tied with 29).

Two months in, they no longer seem like the punchline to a joke, but are rather a team that the rest of the league is taking seriously.

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“The standings after U.S. Thanksgiving, you sort of know who you are,” a Western Conference general manager said. “The Leafs might not be one of the two best teams in the conference, but they’re in that next cluster of teams. That’s a good sign. I certainly think they’re for real.”

The Leafs, who went 3-1-0 on this four-game road trip, did not do anything to disprove that notion with their third straight win on Sunday night.

While Toronto spotted Anaheim a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal from François Beauchemin, the Leafs went ahead 2-1 after Tyler Bozak and Clarke MacArthur scored 19 seconds apart. A third goal in as many games from Joey Crabb put Toronto up 3-1 early in the second.

The Leafs, who were 8-0-0 when leading after two periods, seemed destined to pick up the two points. Just as it looks like they are destined for a playoff spot.

This could all change, of course. Toronto plays the red-hot Boston Bruins in back-to-back games this week, having already lost by a combined score of 13-2 to the defending Stanley Cup champions. They appear to be a team headed for the playoffs. And yet, because we have been fooled so many times in the past, part of us keeps waiting for Lucy to yank the ball and for the beleaguered team to end up on its back again.

The Leafs started last season 4-0-0 only to be sucked into a November tailspin that they would not get out of. This year, when the team got out to a similar start, critics pointed out Toronto’s schedule had been one of the easiest in the NHL.

That may be true. Their opponent Sunday night, the Ducks, had won just once in their last 13 games. Still, give the Leafs credit for winning these so-called easy games. As a result, the Leafs stand above five teams — the New York Rangers, Buffalo, Washington, Tampa Bay and Montreal — that made the playoffs last year. And they have been doing it with a shorthanded lineup.

The Leafs, who have been without their No. 1 goaltender since Oct. 22, have lost 80 man-games to injury this season. Any other year that would have spelled disaster. But from Crabb to Joe Colborne to Keith Aulie, the team keeps reaching back into the minors and finding NHL-ready players who can fill holes.

It says a lot about the team’s depth when defenceman Cody Franson, who scored eight goals in 80 games with Nashville last season, is only playing because Mike Komisarek is injured. Last year, Tyler Bozak was the No. 1 centre because there were no other options. This year, he is earning his spot, with his second two-goal game of the week on Sunday to give him 16 points in 22 games — half of what he finished with in all of last season.

And then there are Kessel and Lupul, who combined for three assists and have given Toronto a one-two scoring punch that has not been seen around here since Doug Gilmour and Dave Andreychuk were filling opposing nets.

“Anytime you get a guy leading the league in scoring and another guy on the fringe, you’re going to win hockey games,” the Western Conference general manager said. “The evolution of Phil Kessel and the resurgence of Joffrey Lupul are big reasons why they are where they are. I think that they’re probably deeper than people realized.”

No one would go as far as to call the Leafs a Cup contender. Not yet anyway. But for the time being, you can confidently say that they look like they should make the playoffs and not hear snickering.